Knowing
by Ginger6
Summary: Sometimes it's enough.


Disclaimer: Apparently, she's blonde again and he's about to head back to Boston to don a "puffy shirt." Tommy Thompson now produces another show in which a guy sees dead people. Could it possibly matter anymore?

Knowing

By Ginger

It felt like sleepwalking. It had descended on him like a heavy fog, making him feel wholly detached from the places and people around him. Life took on a surreal, dreamlike quality: like sleepwalking only he was wide awake. He'd never been a good sleeper and now he barely slept at all.

He'd soldiered on, finished what he'd been in the midst of when he'd gotten word, if for no other reason than to keep the world from tilting off its axis. It had been a struggle though; he'd made a small but stupid mistake and wondered if he'd failed to cover his tracks sufficiently to ensure a conviction. He'd always been acutely aware that he was just one slip-up away from giving any mildly competent attorney what he or she needed to transform the details of his intervention into a "technicality." And yet he hadn't even bothered to find out if the grand jury had handed down an indictment.

He was having trouble caring about much of anything, barely mustering interest even in his own freedom. In some remote corner of his mind he wondered if in desperation they would redouble their efforts to find him now that a vital link had been severed. He pictured what might be going on back there, how everyone – the ones who cared anyway – might be dealing. But even these thoughts were dispassionate because all he seemed capable of feeling was this crushing numbness.

Not that he imagined himself in any real peril. There was no trail for anyone to follow because he hadn't left any at his previous location. There had been no point. And with no one to fight for or no cause to champion, he wasn't attracting any attention at his present location. He was an anonymous man alone in a big city, merely existing from one day to the next. He was sleepwalking.

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If he'd been capable of finding humor in anything, he'd have found it funny. One Saturday morning she simply walked up to the door of his shabby apartment and knocked. And he opened it to her, inviting her in. On an intellectual level he was aware that it was beyond ridiculous, but he was unable to take any pleasure in the sheer folly of it. Apparently, the irony was lost on her too for she was all business, her expression unreadable as she crossed his threshold carrying a small metal box.

Absurd pleasantries were exchanged: he graciously offered coffee; she politely declined as she took in the austere surroundings. The small table and one chair next to the kitchenette were the only pieces of furniture in the gloomy studio apartment besides the mattress in the center of the room. On the table lay a laptop computer, unplugged and unopened and looking as though it hadn't been touched for days. On the floor in an opposite corner lay another piece of electronic equipment, one that would have been of considerable interest to her once but now barely registered in her field of vision. Next to it was an open duffel bag with a few articles of clothing poking out.

He pulled the chair from the kitchenette to the center of the room and gestured for her to take it then sat down on the mattress in front of her. Silence reigned as he watched her hands play over the small metal box resting in her lap and noted the uncharacteristic nature of her attire. She wore black cotton pants and a pale blue short sleeve sweater; the heels of her square toe boots were maybe two inches instead of the usual four. She wore very little makeup with her hair falling loosely on her shoulders and curling softly at the ends, a far cry from the usual sleek perfection. The effect of the casual ensemble was to accentuate her loveliness.

He could appreciate her beauty on an aesthetic level without feeling the electric tingle he typically experienced in her presence, even when homicidally angry with her, even when fighting to keep his freedom or to save his life, hers or both. Not even she – the woman with a singular ability to provoke strong emotions in him – could permeate the numbing fog. He broke the silence with a half-hearted:

"To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?"

She took a deep breath and reached out to offer the box to him. He didn't take it from her immediately, staring at it for several long moments. Under other circumstances she might have grown impatient but her impatience would have been directed at someone else, someone she knew. This man with the robot-like demeanor and cold, lifeless eyes was a stranger to her, confirming what she'd suspected after silent hours turned into silent days which became silent weeks: he had left her all alone for the first time. The muscles in her arms had started to ache by the time he took it from her.

"You should know," she stated softly as she watched him slowly open the box.

She didn't bother to add _what you meant to him_ because it wasn't necessary. The contents of the box said it all; among them a PEZ dispenser, several tiny plastic residents of a "Barrel O' Monkeys", a Slinky. The unexpected pang that came with the first item grew in intensity with each successive discovery until he reached the bottom and spotted a carefully folded piece of paper bearing a picture drawn lovingly in a child's hand. Emitting a sharp gasp he reached in and removed it with trembling fingers. Still unable to quite believe his eyes, he unfolded the paper and stared at its contents then blinked up at her and rasped,

"I don't understand."

With a nod she replied, "Yes, you do."

With that the fog lifted to reveal searing pain akin to having his chest cavity opened up without the benefit of anesthesia. It literally knocked him on his side, forcing him to struggle for breath through choking sobs. Rubbing her clammy palms on her pant legs she drew a fortifying breath then rose from her chair to lean over and gently pry the paper from his hand, replacing it and the rest of the items in the box then setting it aside. She was about to turn away when his eyes snapped open and she immediately recognized, even through the agonizing grief, the man she knew. Expelling a heavy sigh of relief she offered,

"Unless there is something I can get you, I'll leave you be."

For if she'd learned anything from the hands she'd been dealt, it was that walking through the black tunnel of grief was the only way to get to whatever light existed at the other end. At least he'd finally begun his journey. Hopefully being around his family would help; perhaps together they would find his mother. She wondered about her own future, the loss of one constant in her life inevitably precipitating the loss of another, but felt no anxiety over it. After a lifetime filled with deception, the act of enlightening someone gave her a rare sense of peace. Maybe the truth really did set you free.

On that thought, and reading his silence as permission to leave, she was about to turn away again when he sat up suddenly and grabbed her hand. As though reading her thoughts, which was no surprise really because he'd been doing that for as long as she'd known him, he met her eyes and whispered,

"You should know."

He didn't bother to add _what you mean to me_ because it wasn't necessary. The way he pulled her to him and held on for dear life said it all. She was startled at first, although more bemused by the idea that anyone would seek comfort from her than by the fact that this particular man had. It reminded her of how she'd felt on a cabin porch, years earlier, when another man had reached out to her in anguish. Now as then she simply returned the embrace because she didn't know what else to do.

At first she was an anchor, bracing him against the onslaught of emotion as he cried and cried until her sweater was soaked with his tears. The numbing fog having lifted, however, his body began to register its unprecedented, extreme proximity to hers. Were it not for his all-consuming grief, he might have had the composure to control his impulses. Were it not for the overwhelming loss, he wouldn't have had such a powerful need to feel so alive. Nothing and no one made his heart beat like she did.

When his desperate clinging evolved into deliberate nuzzling, she stiffened briefly but didn't say anything, as though unsure of what to make of it. When he could no longer bear to keep his lips off her skin, pressing a lingering kiss to the edge of her jaw just under her ear, she emitted a soft gasp – a gorgeous sound that reverberated through every cell in his body to make him want to hear it again and again. Her muttered protests died on his lips, where he held her insistently until her body relaxed against his and he felt her hands in his hair, pulling him deeper into the kiss.

So much sensation seemed miraculous to him after weeks of feeling nothing. With tenderness and affection she brought him back to the land of the living, where he felt everything: the pain, the joy, and the pleasure. She was soft, fragrant skin and delightful curves, so delicate and feminine and strong and confident all at the same time, a wonder of nature. Her touch was a revelation.

She marveled at the superb ordinariness of doing what men and women have been doing since the beginning of time. They could be any two people, any new lovers spending a lazy weekend lost in one another. Not living on the fringes of society, not running and not chasing, not sharing a tragic history, not constantly uncovering earth-shattering, soul-wrenching secrets; just a man and woman making love. When he moaned a name that hadn't passed his lips in decades – her name – she thought _this is the way life is supposed to be_.

Only afterwards, when it could not be attributed to the heat of passion, did he gaze deeply into her eyes and say, "I love you," then kissed away the tears she shed remembering the last time she'd heard those three little words. She recalled how kneeling on the floor of a restaurant and holding the hand that had once been such a comfort to a grieving little girl, she'd leaned in to hear his oxygen-deprived, pain-ravaged voice over the siren of the approaching ambulance that they had both known would arrive too late.

She would not share the details of those last moments and he would not ask her to. They were hers to keep forever just as the metal box was his. What they did share for the rest of the day and through the night was their passion, affection and respect for each other. Every touch was a comfort, a silent acknowledgment that as long as they both lived neither would be alone because each had at least one person out there in the world who fundamentally understood the other. And that knowledge made it easier when early the next morning she announced that she had to get back.

He simply nodded and rose from bed with her to dress. This time when he offered coffee she accepted, her hand resting on the kitchenette counter under his as they stood together sipping from their mugs in companionable silence. They didn't say much because there wasn't much to say. He would disappear because that's what they were expecting him to do under the circumstances; to do anything else would be to admit that he had _another_ reason to stay in touch, exposing a new weak spot to be exploited and risking a loss beyond what he could bear.

As long as she remained there – and he knew without asking that she was not ready to be anywhere else – he would forfeit answers to his questions so that she might find answers to hers. Maybe when they both had their answers they would have the type of life they deserved. Or perhaps one day the answers wouldn't matter to them anymore. He didn't dwell on what the future held because when they kissed goodbye she told him she loved him adding with a smile, "And I said it with my clothes on so I win." He knew what he meant to her and knowing was enough.

The End

A/N: I have no idea where this came from, except perhaps from living day-to-day with my heart 1,000 miles away so that I'm essentially walking around like that stained glass portrait Jarod made of Parker in "Wake Up."


End file.
